REVIEW: Grimspace

Ann Aguirre
Grimspace (book #1)
Ace
ISBN-10: 0441015999
ISBN-13: 978-0441015993
Science fiction
February 26, 2008

Possible, slight spoilers – beware

The At A Glance

Sirantha Jax carries the required genetic makeup to jump ships through grimspace. It’s the type of job that brings addictive high times and excitement, but it’s also going to be the death of her. Literally. When a ship she’s navigating crashes, and everyone in it dies but her, she’s left holding the blame.

Imprisoned for this supposed crime, Jax may not be able to hold out much longer under the brutal hand of the Corp’s Unit Psychs. She’s succumbing to one of a jumper’s ultimate fear – madness. Just when it seems there’ll be no going back, Jax is rescued by a strange man, March. He’ll give her the freedom she craves, but only in exchange for her help. March and a small band of resistance forces want to sever the control that the Corp has over interstellar travel. Jax is known for her amazing skills as a jumper too though, and whatever it is that makes that part of her tic holds the most interest in a cloak and dagger game of universal proportions.

1st POV – Me Like

What is it with me and first person? So many seem to dislike it, but it’s like the equivalent of a kid getting one of those giant rainbow swirl lollipops with me – if the lead character can pull it off. Fortunately for this little natural born sarcastic, Sirantha Jax, our irrepressible heroine, has just enough of a smart-arsed, dry roasted wit to keep me glued to the pages.

I’m just staring at him, mouth half-open. As soon as I realize it, I find something to say, anything. “Who the hell are you?”

“March,” he tells me.

“That a name or an order?”

Oh yeah, Jax’s got a smart mouth and she’s not afraid to use it. Let’s face it, if we’re going to read 1st POV, we need a hero or heroine that’s not afraid to put herself out there, be it verbally or physically. And on that note, she’s not afraid to dive into the action either.

There is the fact that we’re possibly going to be very limited on the other characters. OK, we definitely will be a lot of the time. The action goeth wherever our heroine does. I’ve never, for some reason, been bothered by this with any 1st POV character I’ve read. You just know going in that this will likely be the case. Over the years though, I did begin to notice that a cleverly penned 1st POV can still give great insights into other main and secondary characters. The thing is, the main character we’re looking at everything else through has to be keen enough – and not gratuitously self-absorbed – to make observations on the events and people around him/her, else we really won’t get much of a clue what’s going on with the others.

And I believe that Sirantha Jaz does indeed make enough observations of the goings on around her. Example:

…Keri weeps against March’s shoulder. Mair, with her wild eyes, looks like the living embodiment of the old Furies, come to reap a man’s soul. I’m a little afraid of her, and everyone falls back, as she surges towards the Gunnars. For a moment, I think she’ll rend them limb from limb singlehandedly.

Carl glances at me in appeal, as if I have some power in this insane tableau. Then I realize I do.

“Frag you.” I answer his look in Keri’s time-for-tea tone.

That short, simple passage told me at the time I originally read it a lot about the secondary characters included. Keri’s a soft hearted soul at times, but she can be biting and tough too. March can be a nurturer and Mair is obviously someone that nobody wants to fuck with. Go, Mair. And it, amongst other scenes, showed me that Jax pays attention to others around her.

Another point of 1st POV is that we have to be able to trust that the narrator is giving us the true happenings of events. And as Sirantha is a blunt, direct person, I believe we are getting as close to a true representation of secondary characters as we can get in this case.

The Universe According to Jax

Time to tackle the visuals. The vistas. Freak, OK already – the world building. Saving the best for last, the characters.

So lots of folks are claiming a Firefly/Serenity likeness (as I believe the author has stated was an influence–and BTW, damn you for peaking my interest in that series again, Ms. Aguirre! Like I have the time!). I’ve only ever seen Serenity and while I can agree to a point, I got other visuals for some reason. At one point in the beginning of the book, a run-in with some nasty blood hungry be-winged creatures made me think of Pitch Black…even though Jax’s scene takes place during the day. Then she and her cohort’s run in with a clannish backwater family, the Gunnars, reminding me somewhat of a Mad Max scenario (why, I have no idea now). Although the more I think about it, yeah, I could totally get how Jax could be compared to River Tam. River’s 2×4 physique and long hair is not a bad likeness when trying to visualize Jax. Then here’s that whole crazy, butt-kicking super bad ass-ness they both tout. Hehe.

As for the world building itself…I really liked it. We get outer rim territories, like the planet Lachion, with it’s bare-bones winter, deadly swift creatures and survivalist culture. Vice and pleasure at it’s finest is displayed in the glistening domed world of port city Gehenna. Terror and chills are served up on a remote space station set for scientific experimentation (freak-ay shit reminded me of Alien Resurrection). There’s plenty to see here in all the locals offered. And as fast paced as this book is kept, we get to see hell of a lot. By the end of the book, I’d felt as if I’d actually been somewhere and was just getting home again.

Terminology is key in these kinds of reads and Aguirre coins some unique phrases and wordage for us. I think the phrase I’d most like the deets behind is Mary of Anabolic Grace. I have an inkling, but would rather not make assumptions. And then there are the technical terms that make us feel like we’re amongst the stars, or the cool confines of a metal-toting ship. I loved Jax’s term for a prisoner, whitefish, which she explains as “no daylight and no parole”. Pretty succinct, yet thoroughly effective in conveying a lot of imagery for what could have been her fate.

And we’re not just getting humanoid beings here. While I didn’t quite get what all of them looked like, there were still some rather interesting additions. Looking forward to more of that in later books.

Character Building

Jax is pretty mercenary in her motivations when we first discover her sitting in that Corp cell. She’s in it for her, number one. She’s a survivor and not above taking advantage if it’ll help her get out of a bad situation. But she’s honest in her motives too. I think what I liked best about Jax over the course of Grimspace was the way she’s able to evolve and open up to people, to see that she’s a better person than the one that blithely went through life before, not a care in the universe for other, bigger issues. She made choices that didn’t endear me to her at times, while making me smile at other, more notable and heroic choices in turn. She’s not perfect and that’s what I like to see in a hero or heroine; a bit of flawed actions and thoughts. Something many a person can relate to.

March deserves a bit of direct notation for his role too. Let it be known, we enter the book with pretty much every character having some sort of heavy history. March’s dilemma is his personal part in the mess revolving around Jax and how it’ll either help or hinder his desire to flout the Corp’s control over grimspace. At times, I wasn’t sure if he was really in it for him, or just to save and help others–what was his true motivation? And then, at a particularly gruesome point int he story, it becomes clear that he’s got a bit of a martyr complex, so much that danger to himself becomes a negligible point with him. I loved that he is willing to go to the lengths he does to help others, but he needed some serious self-preservation too. And one of my minor peeves about the book: I didn’t really buy his feelings for Jax. I thought their relationship was a bit rushed for him to react in the extreme way he does towards the end, but then they do have a tight bond it seems. I am glad this series is continuing because I’m hoping that their relationship is continuously fleshed out, so that I can understand their mental bond a bit more and the whys of March’s somewhat obsessive behavior. Till the end of the book, I did find their interactions quite intriguing, rather sweet and I suppose I just didn’t expect for him to feel as strongly as he does by book’s end.

Other Minor Peeves and Conclusion

Ha, so there is a light at the end of this review tunnel.

The only other minor peeve I had is how rushed the last quarter or so of the book felt. Jax actually takes a bit of R&R time, but then after that, things pick up speed again and that’s when I started to disbelieve a couple of things, the March obsession issue being one. Like I said though, it was really pretty minor when I looked back and realized I enjoyed pretty much everything else. I’m very much looking forward to the next one.

The series will continue in said order:

• Wanderlust (August 26, 2008)
• Doubleblind (recently contracted, name subject to change)
• Killbox (recently contracted, name subject to change)

Be sure to stay tuned to Aguirre’s official website for further news on the series.

And just because I lurv urban fantasy, check out the blurb/excerpt for the first in an upcoming series from her, the first titled Blue Diablo (April 2009).

Rating: Four Scoops

River Tam image found at IMDB.com